Chapter 44
Doubt has to be the kind of self-deprecation you get through years of trauma. Right?
Like a shock collar, just when you think you’ve found happiness, something jolts you back to reality.
Rhett definitely didn’t mean to piss me off when he mentioned next Halloween, it’s just dreaming too far ahead scares me.
We aren’t even a couple. At least, not officially.
There’s been no going steady comment, we haven’t verbally committed to anything other than enjoying our time together.
Hell, I haven’t met his family and don’t even know if they know I exist.
A future would be nice, but it’s hard to think of one when I feel so lost in the present.
I stare back at my reflection in Sawyer’s bathroom mirror and fake a smile. For fuck’s sake, I’m dressed as an angel, this is a Halloween party, and I should be having fun, yet here I am trying to convince myself there’s a problem where there isn’t.
Why am I like this? Why can’t I just let myself live life more freely? Why is my default setting always to run or shut down when I start to overthink things instead of just communicating what’s wrong? I wish I could stop ruining shit so it can’t ruin me.
No, screw this. I’m not going to do this.
Not tonight. Fishing through my purse, I pull out my sparkle roller ball and run it over my chest and collar bone.
I look hot, and I am not going to let this look be wasted, all because I panicked over Rhett thinking forward.
That clearly means that he sees a future with me, not an end.
I adjust my outfit, making sure I look better than when I left, because there’s a hot as fuck cowboy—well, Prince Charming—outside waiting to sweep me off my feet and I’m going to let him.
Heading out of the bathroom and back toward where I left my friends, I can’t seem to find them. Costumes make the crowd that much harder to navigate, until I see Daisy and Sawyer off grabbing another drink. I wave and look for Rhett.
My heart sinks when I spot him toward the barn with a girl dressed as a mermaid. A red wig spills down her back, a tiny, little, purple shell bra and nearly just as tiny sequin skirt to match. From here, she looks gorgeous and he looks too comfortable.
Who is that?
I watch from across the bonfire as the girl laughs with Rhett.
They both have smiles on their faces that either say they are familiar with one another or want to be.
As she speaks, their expressions shift to something more serious.
Rhett leans against the side of the barn, placing his arm high against the wall, a position that, to me, looks intimate.
Anger rushes through me. His concentration on her pisses me off as I try to shake the feeling.
I wonder how many times Mom saw Dad in a similar situation. How often he engaged with women right out in public like she wasn’t there with him. I feel my heart crack a little, and even further at the fact that I gave someone enough of me that this, too, could be my reality.
Jealousy is a trait I’ve done my best to avoid, yet here it is, creeping in, sinking its fangs into my emotions. Distrust surfaces, whether he deserves it or not, a lingering reminder of how easily my happiness could all just be a sham. And that I gave someone a bit more of me than I ever intended.
Maybe this says a lot more about me than him. Maybe I’m overthinking this, but what if I’m not?
He didn’t act on it when Hannah gave him her number. It’s not like she knew anything about him when she did it, though, and honestly had she not done that, I might not have seen my interest in him. But this is different. It doesn’t matter if this girl knows I exist, because he does.
I can’t tell if I’m furious at myself or him. Or whether or not I have the right to be. This could all just be for fun. We never outwardly said it was anything more, anyway. And maybe I’m overthinking what I’m feeling witness to. Maybe it’s nothing and I’m just being dramatic.
The girl leans against the wall, peering up at him.
I want him to walk away, I want to see her sad.
I wish he didn’t give her the light of day, but he’s polite by nature.
The man makes everyone feel like a life-long friend and my insecurity over it feels off.
I have to be wrong. He isn’t doing anything, this is just a worry my dad created.
Not all men are unfaithful. Not all men are liars.
I want to be convinced that my fears don’t stem from him. To reassure myself that I wouldn’t allow someone in who doesn’t deserve to be. After all the shit I’ve been through, I know the signs of who not to trust. Don’t I?
I look over his mannerisms, dissecting every movement he makes, hoping he will look around searching for me, but he doesn’t.
He places his other hand on his hip, nodding as she talks, and I consider walking over to interrupt their conversation.
His smile beams, as it always does, while she laughs and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear.
I find her annoying and that move to be unoriginal.
I cross my arms, grasping tighter than I meant to, almost as if to give myself the hug I long for in this moment, hoping that my worry will disappear along with it. The longer I watch, the more in my head I become.
Men have always let me down. This time isn’t going to be different, and I’m stupid for believing it would be. Cowboy charisma, that’s what they do, and my dumb ass fell for it with little to no hesitation.
They laugh again, because, of course, they do.
I look around, hoping to find Daisy’s, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Who would think finding a girl in a bright red dress would be so hard?
My hands start to feel clammy as I look down at my feet, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath before releasing it slowly.
Why do I keep finding myself here? Interest only ever blooming with the wrong people?
I’m not trying to solve my Daddy issues, and I sure as hell am not going to wind up like Mom.
I’m not a buckle bunny, I’m not some big-boobed bimbo whose only hangup from being at the Playboy mansion is some deep rooted desire for a man in a cowboy hat.
Yet here I am, dressed as an angel, looking like one.
Maybe this is all just me being pathetic.
Trying to fill a hole that my piece of shit father created, and the more I focus on it the more I want to scream.
I don’t think there’s a single good man out there, at least not one for me.
They make everyone feel special until they truly should be and that’s when they decide you’re not.
They get whatever it is they were searching for and then they leave or give you a reason to.
The story’s never different and I’m dumb as fuck for believing otherwise.
My gaze returns back to Rhett, and I watch as she wraps her arms around him in a tight embrace.
Tears blur my eyes as they begin to trickle down my cheeks.
I remind myself of where my mother ended up and why I never wanted to wind up being her carbon copy.
Taking one more look at them, I decide it’s best to do what I always do.
Save myself, because no one else will. Apparently not even a man who prides himself on being Prince Charming.
I rush through the crowd, doing my best not to bump into anyone or cause a scene.
Which proves rather hard with the massive wings I decided to wear.
My car comes into view and I find relief in its safety as I slam the door behind me.
Years of dampening how I’ve felt now flood in, like the dam I’ve built so high finally shattering.
Brokenness consuming me, and for the first time, I let it.
I could always feel this, I just never allowed myself to.
I’ve lived my entire life with a broken heart.
One that glue couldn’t fix no matter how many times I tried to put the pieces together.
So I stopped trying and told myself I would be fine.
And it’s weird, because I always imagined this feeling to be different.
I imagined it would be something I could see a mile away.
Some grand situation creating the crumble.
But it wasn’t. It was a series of moments that led to my fall.
Most small, and if separate, those situations probably wouldn’t have done much to the permanent ache that now resides in me, but together they ironically form something whole—the pieces I now can’t fit back together all thrown in a box I pretend is strength.
A strength that I’ve thought could get through even the quickest of sands. But as each soul crushing moment rises, I feel myself sink deeper. I wish for nothing more than someone to throw me a lifeline, and I thought Rhett was that. But after seeing that girl touch him, I know I’m wrong.
And it’s funny, isn’t it? How those we hold so close to our hearts are ultimately the ones who break us? Who lead us down a path of salvation right before the devastation that ultimately drowns us?
I’ve questioned all my life how someone who was only ever meant to love us eventually is the very reason we can’t even love ourselves. And this might have started with my dad, but I’m ending it here and now with Rhett.
We’re done.